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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: LindyBill who wrote (11837)	10/12/2003 12:33:18 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) of 793914

I would agree with the article's premises and conclusions, up to a point. The point of disagreement lies in the simple reality that you cannot point to any single facet of Indonesian Islam and call it "The Real Face". There are just too many faces there. Certainly if you look at Indonesians across the board, you will not find anything close to a majority supporting the sort of militant Islamism we see in the Middle East. I have no real worry about an Islamic regime taking power in Jakarta. The concern lies more in Jakarta's inability to control the Islamist underground that has taken root in troubled areas scattered around the country. The population is not Islamist, and neither is the Government, but Islamists with terrorist connections do move and operate pretty freely in the country. It's less an issue of State-supported terrorism than of an anti-terrorist government that lacks the ability to prevent terrorists from operating within its boundaries. Since Bali, of course, there has been a crackdown and quite a few arrests have been made, mostly of individuals that have been involved in attacks in Indonesia. There has been somewhat less enthusiasm for tracking down individuals that are based there but are directed more at outside targets. It's a huge country, and central government control and influence in many areas is very weak. As far as this goes: United States policy toward Indonesia should be shaped by an appreciation of the continuing strength of this moderate center, which is as opposed to terrorism as Americans are. I think US policy towards Indonesia also must contain an appreciation of the degree to which Jakarta is using support against Islamic terrorsm as a lever to persuade the US to overlook its own continuing campaign of State terrorism in Aceh. It's a situation in some ways analogous to that of the Russians in Chechnya. Too many American leaders like to pretend that the war against terror and the war for freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights have some sort of bilateral symmetry: that our allies against terror are neccesarily our allies in pursuit of all those good things. This is not true, and at some point we will have to ask ourselves just how much we are willing to overlook to gain short-term support. American willingness to overlook horrendously bad governance in its allies against communism had repercussions that lasted well after that war was over. The same could easily happen with allies against terrorism. It's not good guys against bad guys.

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